Running a business is a not as simple as it seems when you’re an employee of some one else’s business.
Think about starting your business and what you thought compared to now when you’re a little more battle weary!
When I first started my business I had very little idea about how tough it was going to be. I was very like the character in my book ‘Where’s the money Gone?’
Who thought that if he could make only half of what he thought then he’d be so far ahead it was worth the risk. But it hasn’t turned out like that. My business hasn’t gone quite the way it was supposed to when I first started out.
So what has been the biggest problem?
ME.. The biggest problem in my business has been me, the business owner and how I reacted to situations and dealt with problems.
If I was starting out again I would spend as much time understanding me as I put into understanding the business I was running
The difficulty I found with understanding me is that it is difficult to do without some outside help. I am grateful to my own coach who has been with me for the last eight years and has often brought the right advice in the three areas I’m suggesting are at the heart of small business coaching.
1. Accountability
Running a business takes up at least 24 hours a day in thinking time and often 10 – 12 hours in working time. This means that you can get lost in the rhythm of doing the day-to-day and forget important future initiatives. I found that having a day in the month when I met my coach brought accountability to the things I needed to get done. Often in the week before we met I would quickly get on to tasks that needed to be completed and without the deadline of a meeting I would have probably never finished what I knew needed to be done.
2. Objectivity
When I’m buried in the day-to-day of my business it’s so easy to ‘miss the wood for the trees!’ Having someone with a fresh pairs of eyes who sees the business from a different perspective has been really valuable for me. They can look in and make suggestions which I would not have thought of. Not because they know more about the business than me but simply because they can see things without the clutter of the day-to-day problems that can dominate my thoughts.
3. Impartiality
I don’t know about you but in my business it’s really easy to get emotionally attached to certain services, products or customers.
When you know all of these things intimately then you can be blinded by your emotions and make some really bad decisions.
When small business coaching is delivered correctly it can bring a needed sense of balance to the business and bring back some much needed logic in difficult areas.
I mean, how easy is it for you to stop dealing with a customer on which you’ve made losses?
How easy is it to write off a load of old inventory and exit a product which is never going to be highly successful?
How well can you simply stop delivering services to geographic locations that don’t make sense but bring in a few dollars?
All of these situations are difficult and often need the encouragement of an impartial person to make the tough decisions which are right for the business.
What are your thoughts on these three points?
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